Bradenton Beach commissioners’ No. 1 choice for new signs at the city’s north and south gateways is a simple design: a white background, the city seal and black lettering that reads “Welcome To BRADENTON BEACH.”
The commission made the choice during a meeting Dec. 1 at city hall, 107 Gulf Drive N. Commissioner Ed Straight did not attend.
The city’s capital improvements committee, tasked by the commission earlier this year with carrying out gateway improvements, proposed four sign designs.
Each proposed sign was 72 inches wide and 48 inches tall and carried the “welcome” message, but the coloring varied.
“We were in favor of this one,” Mayor John Shaughnessy said, referring to the white sign, “because people would see it more.”
The CIP committee also is working on a gateway project at Cortez Road and Gulf Drive, where plans include a low horizontal “welcome” sign, beach sunflowers and other native landscaping and possibly a sidewalk on the west side of Gulf Drive from Cortez Road north to the Gulf Drive Cafe.
The commission’s Dec. 1 agenda also included a public hearing on a request for a special exception to erect a 162-foot dock on Sarasota Bay at 500 Bay Drive S.
A special exception is needed to extend the dock beyond the 65-foot limit allowed in the city’s land-development code. And a longer dock is needed to extend beyond seagrass.
The planning and zoning board did not recommend the commission approve the request because of concerns about boater navigation at the location.
The commission, at the request of the applicant, continued the hearing until 7 p.m. Jan. 5.
In other business, commissioners:
• Approved an agreement between Manatee County and the city for the policing of Coquina Beach. The county manages the beach and contracts with the city for law enforcement.
The contract requires the county to pay the city $7,271 per month for police services at the beach.
City attorney Ricinda Perry said the new agreement was “identical almost” to a 2011 agreement.
• Approved a final reading of an ordinance repealing the city’s firearms rules to comply with a new state law.
• Approved a final reading of an ordinance on parking that prohibits overnight parking in public lots and prohibits the parking of RVs and other large vehicles in the lots.
• Accepted a bid from Total Pest and Termite control to tent Tingley Memorial Library. The total expense, $1,900, will be shared by the library and the city.
“This is pretty much below the other bids,” Shaughnessy said.
• Discussed and then selected the color — yellow — of parking wheel stops in a city parking lot near the police and public works departments at Highland Avenue.
• Discussed and then approved a request to trim but not top-off 10 Australian pine trees along the shore at Herb Dolan Park. Property owners in the area who requested the trimming will pay the bill.
Public works director Tom Woodard said the intent was to clean up the area and improve the view of the bay.
• Heard from Bridge Street Merchants vice president Caryn Hodge, who invited the mayor and commissioners to the BSM’s Christmas celebration, set for 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Dec. 17.
“We’re going to make it snow on Bridge Street, but no coats required,” she said.